Once upon a time it used to be thought that “primitives” lead lives that were, to quote Hobbes, “…nasty, brutish, and short…”, times change and so did the lifestyle of the “Other”. Changed so much, in fact, that only European expansion, circa the age of Discovery, could provoke a war. Both ideas are the subject of War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Lawrence H. Keeley.
Although ostensibly about the above two ideas about the past, Keeley’s book is really an excellent anthropological analysis of war. In twelve chapters Keeley looks at the prevalence of war, weapons used, tactics, forms (e.g. raids, ambushes, battles, massacres, etc.), casualties (in terms of who the casualties are and how many there are – there is also a discussion of injuries and medical efficacy of treatments), who profits and loses and what those profits and losses are, causes and contexts, and how peace is negotiated. There is also a chapter comparing “primitive” warriors to “modern” soldiers.
There are several themes that run through the book. First, the type of war one can fight is predicated upon social organization and economics (or more precisely, ones subsistence base). This should not be taken to mean that because, say, a band uses tactics of ambushes and raids, they are less effective than, say, modern nation states. Keeley cites a number of, as he calls the, “prestate societies” that have held their own against modern states for varying periods of time. One of the most powerful figures in the book is where Keeley compares war fatality rates as a percentage of population killed per year. Groups like the Dani, Modoc, and Dinka are at the top whereas Germany and Russia, for all the carnage they have caused in the 20th century, are at the bottom of the scale. Scale is important in this context, as Keeley points out:
But how can such high losses be reconciled with the low casualty rates generally observed in primitive battles, where the action is often broken off when both sides have suffered a few dead? Part of the answer lies in the high sortie rate of primitive warriors. As was noted earlier, warfare occurs much more frequently in most primitive societies than in civilized ones. Thus a relatively low loss rate per war, battle, or raid can cumulate very rapidly to catastrophic levels. Suppose that a tribe with 100 warriors breaks off fighting or arranges a truce in battle after the loss of just 5 percent dead or mortally wounded. If such battles occurred about four times a year, the cumulative loss in just five years would be 64%, leaving only 36 warriors alive to defend the group.
Add to that the destruction of fields, livestock, and villages and you begin to glimpse how destructive warfare can be even in small societies. This is the second theme in Keeley’s book. Raids and ambushes combined with a scorched earthed policy are used by “prestate” societies and when modern states go up against them they frequently fare poorly until they adopt those tactics themselves. Think Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. I don’t find this 100% convincing as, despite all the variability Keeley talks about, He seems to reduce warfare to two basic types. Primitive scorched earth or modern military nationstate.
Chapter Eleven returns to the question mentioned in the beginning of this review. That is, what Keeley refers to as the pacification of the past. In this chapter, Keeley explores how we went from a Hobbsian view of the past to a Neo-Rousseauian view and provides suggestions on where we go from here in terms of the anthropological study of war. Chapter Twelve summarizes what we have learned in the book and provides some suggestions about how we, as a nation, should proceed. For those, however, you will have to read the book.
All in all, War Before Civilization is a fascinating and controversial look at a complex part of the human condition. I highly recommend it. In closing I can resist quoting one more lengthy bit that shows Keeley at his sly and humorous best:
A Belgian archaeologist who has excavated many Iron Age burials was criticized by several colleagues at a recent conference for referring to burials from this period as “warrior” graves, even though they contained spears, swords, shields, a male corpse clothed in armor, and in some instances the remains of a chariot. The critics asserted that these weapons and armor were merely status symbols and had only a symbolic function rather than a practical military one. Similarly, copper and bronze axes from the Late Neolithic and Bronze ages, formerly referred to as battle axes, are no longer classified as weapons but are considered a form of money. The 5,000-year-old Austrian glacier mummy recently reported in the news was found with one of these moneys mischievously hafted as an axe. He also had with him a dagger, a bow, and some arrows; presumably these were his small change.